


No one will be watching us

by feyrelay



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: College Student Peter Parker, Counted Word Fic, F/M, First Time, Getting Together, Implied Het, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, No Smut, POV Tony Stark, Sex for Favors, Short & Sweet, Tony Stark Bingo 2019, Using Third Partner for Proxy, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 05:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20335060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Tony's reputation precedes him and maybe that's the problem; Peter has been looking for someone to help him measure up to Tony's legendary, GQ-worthy experience, and he's been looking in all the wrong places.This contains no actual smut because it was a counted word challenge. 2000 words on the dot.[Fills my Tony Stark bingo square R1 "Photo Prompt: GQ cover".]





	No one will be watching us

It’s not like Peter to miss their long-standing lab time. Tony refuses to call it a date only because Peter always does call it that, and he feels he needs to remain a balancing, mentorly influence.

Twenty minutes past their scheduled time, Tony calls.

“Hey kid, were you waylaid by bandits on the road or what? You’re missing our date.”

(Dammit, he said it.)

“Oh, hello, sir, yes. I, uh, I’m on a _ real _ date, actually. With, with Gwen. Last minute thing. Sorry, we can hang out another time!” Peter chirps down the line, and Tony.

And Tony. He hears a tinkling, feminine laugh before Peter, the little shit, hangs up on him.

Real, real, real. Gwen, he knows her. Blonde.

The next call he makes is to Christine Everhart, who laughs her toned little ass off, (“I’m married,” she purrs once she’s recovered) but she also gives him the number of her niece who is a graduate student at ESU. “She could use a little research grant,” Christine intimates.

“I don’t pay for sex,” he snaps. (It’s true; he would and has, of course, given Peter everything he’s ever really asked for, not that the kid does a lot of asking. But not in exchange for… anything.)

Tony can practically hear the feral little grin on Christine’s face, when she speaks. “Somebody’s always paying for sex. Just depends on the currency and the terms of the loan, Mr. Stark. I’ve been married two years and I can tell you that.”

He considers it for a moment, examines the feeling in his chest that rages at being stood-up tonight—the ghost in the machine.

It makes him want to go for broke.

***

Tony has a grand old time for himself. He doesn’t give the girl a research grant because Pepper would stir glass into his coffee at the next board meeting if he was charged with something so scandalous; the university might ask questions, though Tony tends to invite a certain level of… trust, especially when he’s _ creating _ trusts—scholarship, memorial, or otherwise. He does, however, let the casino chips be shared between himself and the girl. Call it ‘mingling’.

_ Like washing your clothes together, it’s intimate, _ he thinks. Then he tries not to think; he has a little stack of Peter’s t-shirts, tikka masala stains laundered away, waiting somewhere at home.

Christine’s niece gains several stacks of chips over the course of the evening, and Tony doesn’t drink too much and neither does she and everything is on track for a lovely evening that just might end with him getting to screw a twenty-five year old into the mattress at the penthouse; he’s forgotten about Peter entirely. (Really, he has.)

So, naturally, the kid is curled up on Tony’s couch when he and Whatsername come stumbling in at about three A.M.

He looks like he’s been there for hours.

Tony goes to him as his date drops her heels by the door, the sound hollow and unimpressed.

Before he knows it, Tony’s on his knees in front of the couch, the side of Peter’s face damp under his hand as Peter pretends not to know that Tony knows he’s been crying.

“We’ve been dating for six months. I’m so stupid. She said she wanted to talk tonight, that’s why it was so last minute, and I thought-” Peter croaks.

Tony winces on the word ‘stupid’. He hates how Peter talks to himself, sometimes. “Six months is a long time at nineteen. I’m sorry, kid. Oh, but I interrupted… you thought _ what _ now?”

Peter’s cheek heats under his palm.

He turns away, looking at the ceiling instead of Tony. It makes his mouth slide along Tony’s wrist before the older man has the presence of mind to lift his arm away.

“I thought. I mean, I know it’s dumb, but Gwen and I, I mean, I’ve never… and I thought if we _did,_ then that would make it _ real_-”

Real, real, real. Peter.

It echoes, but then Tony catches up. “Oh, you. Oh.”

“Yeah,” Peter confirms crisply.

Tony looks at his date, still in the doorway to the elevator area. He motions with his head. _ Come here._

He does so love to be obeyed. Crystal, or Chantal, or Charmaine, or _ whatever _ comes over and melts at the sight of Peter, a bizarre crossbreed of maternal and proprietary. “Poor baby, what can we do,” she says.

It’s flat, barely a question. 

Tony takes his jacket off, folding and laying it gently on the coffee table. He straightens the lapels and the pockets as he does so, smoothly fishing out a couple more poker chips and stacking them at the very corner of said coffee table. Peter sniffs in his blind spot, clearly trying to rally and not look like the heartbroken kid he is.

Crystal’s foot is touching the leg of the table, directly underneath the chips. She holds his gaze.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“This is Peter; he’s the next me.”

Chantal tilts her head. Peter sits up, looking ready to bolt. Tony reaches out for his ankle and finds his shoelace instead. That’s okay; he pulls it.

Peter gives Charmaine a watery smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”

The blonde woman smiles back. “Likewise. If what he says is true, it’s an honor for me. How old are you, Peter?” she says easily.

She reminds him of Christine in that moment, a shark scenting blood in the water, even as it pretends at dolphin.

“I’m nineteen, ma’am,” Peter says politely. Tony undoes his other shoelace.

“Wonderful,” she replies, even as Tony gets up and then helps her to her feet. Peter stands, too, mirroring them.

“Take your shoes off, stay a while, Peter,” Tony invites him. Peter toes off his sneakers. “I’m going to get Miss Everhart situated for the night and then do some work; you’re welcome to join me in the lab.”

Peter looks between them. “You’re not… I mean. I can go, if you-”

Tony claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder, really sells it. “Oh, what? No, no. Her Aunt Christine is an old friend, a colleague. She just had a run of bad luck at my table at the casino and I offered her a place to try and shake it, rather than taking it home with her. Plus, the dorms at ESU can be so strict, even for grad students.”

It’s even all mostly the truth.

Peter’s face clears as he turns back to Crystal. “Oh, we go to the same school! I’m not in the dorms, though.”

Chantal grimaces, but grabs at Peter’s elbow as if steadying herself. “It’s part of my assistantship.”

Peter nods and sits down again, Charmaine settling next to him as Tony begins making himself a drink at the bar. The girl’s a fair actress.

It takes less time than Tony would have thought for them to kiss. He sips his drink as if he’s at the cinema. Peter’s got more game than Tony would have bet on. He watches as his protégé slips his fingers through blonde hair and creates a grip to hold the woman steady. It’s more aggressive than Tony had imagined-

Well. (Yes, he imagined it.)

Tony gets a flash of tongue and chokes on his drink. Peter pulls back and looks at him.

“What, you’ve been on the cover of _ GQ _ and/or _ Maxim _ how many times, and you’re shy, Mr. Stark?”

What the hell has gotten into the kid?

“Oh, well. I don’t know. You’d know better than me, if you collected them all, Parker.”

Chantal chimes in, though, cutting Tony’s victory short; he likes that about her, he supposes. More people should be Team Peter. “Hmmm, he does think highly of himself, doesn’t he?”

Peter silences her resulting giggle with another kiss, and Tony takes another long swallow of his drink. Christ.

“You’re kinda drunk, huh?” Peter’s voice smooths out, the sounds sinking into the carpet. Tony at first thinks he’s talking to him.

Crystal giggles again, and suddenly Tony wonders if maybe she’s getting a bit too into character. Peter sighs and stands, patting her hand before coming over to Tony.

“I dunno how to feel about all this,” he says plainly.

(_Oh, honey, you’re such a good one, aren’t you? _ Tony's mind mutters.)

“You want me to send her home?” Tony says. If Peter’s man enough to have the option of taking that girl to bed, then he’s man enough to take responsibility for the choice not to, as well.

“And if you did? Then what would you and I do?” Peter inquires, voice low.

An excellent question. The clock on the wall ticks.

“Go to bed, I guess. It’s late,” Tony replies. “Try again another day.”

Peter shakes his head, mouth twisting, and grabs for Tony’s drink. He slips it around in his hand to get to a good mouthful. “Ugh, that’s awful,” he says.

Tony feels very fond about it. Was he ever that young? (Or did whiskey come in his baby bottle?)

Peter turns his head to look at Charmaine again. Tony doesn’t track his profile. “You know I don’t know what to do. I always thought. God. It’s stupid-”

The kid looks morose but excited. Miserably privileged. He looks Tony in the eye this time, to finish his train of thought. “I always thought it’d be someone I knew. Someone who cared about me.”

(Well, misery does love company.) (I _ always _ cared.)

“S’okay, just do your best and have fun. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Peter makes a small sound that Tony doesn’t analyze. He doesn’t get his drink back, either, which is a bigger problem, or would be, if he didn’t also have a bar in his room. In his very soundproofed room.

Which he should be headed to now. Now. No, _ now. _

In the end, it’s Charmaine that makes them separate, which is what Tony thinks might be called thematic. She makes her way to Peter and starts pulling him towards the hallway that so obviously leads away from the open floorplan of the kitchen and lounge area. Tony convinces himself that that means she’s not actually that inebriated.

(Or does that make it worse?)

Peter’s not really one to be pulled around, though, and he tries to disentangle himself even as he involuntarily leans into the woman’s warm touch like a little starving kitten.

"Wait, wait, I-"

"You're okay," Tony insists, on his way to his bedroom. Yep, he’s on his way.

"I'm not, oh god, I'm fucking this all up, but. What do I-"

Tony softens a bit, walks over and puts a hand on Peter's forearm to pull it away from the feminine grasp.

"Hey, look, you don't have to do anything. Relax about it. You can say yes or no, no problem. You just have to pick one."

(Pick _ one_.)

Peter does nothing of the sort. Instead, he bites his lip a moment and then says, quite plaintively if Tony’s being candid, “Help me.”

Chantal, of course, is not to be left out when it comes to voicing her opinion. “I _ was _ promised the Tony Stark Experience. I’m sure Peter wouldn’t mind sharing; sounds like he could benefit from your expertise.”

And that’s how Tony finally gets to his bedroom. He really does it. It’s all fine.

He’s just not alone.

***

Jesus Christ, but since when does Tony get what he wants? Since when does Tony get _ all _ of what he wants?

He thinks about this as Peter sleeps the sleep of the freshly-fucked, nose in Tony’s armpit. The woman whose name he discovers is actually Carmen, after Peter courteously insists on verifying it, collects her things and says, gently so as not to wake Peter, “Don’t call me.”

***

The next week, Peter is right on time; he’s still got a lot to learn, but Tony is more than happy to provide him with private instruction. And maybe a date or twenty, too.

(Tony doesn’t call her.)


End file.
